Every way you look at it there’s only one guy to blame

Posted by Guest Blogger on Thursday, 12 April 2007 22:18.

Yet another study verifies the knowledge we gain through experience:-

Blacks tend to be prideful and self-inflated.

The poor academic and economic achievement of black people is often blamed on low self-esteem, the result of discrimination from birth and endless negative stereotypes. But the most definitive study on the subject now contradicts this belief: black teenagers do not have lower self-esteem than whites, but higher. Anti-racism campaigners claim that the report suggests there is even more discrimination against blacks than previously thought.

In an article in the US journal Psychological Bulletin, an African-American psychologist shows that whatever the effects of racism, poor self-esteem is not one of them. Except for the very young and very rich, blacks have higher self-esteem than their white counterparts, she demonstrates, and have had for years.

Bernadette Gray-Little, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, performed a complex review of every piece of research available on black self-esteem. Using a technique called meta-analysis, her research culled data from the studies and treated them as if they were part of one giant study, making her results less likely to be the result of chance.

‘There have been inconsistencies in the results of the studies on this topic over time,’ says Gray-Little. ‘I wanted to see if I could find any basis for a firm conclusion. And if inconsistencies occurred, I wanted to know when and why.’

She found that before the age of 10, whites slightly surpass blacks in self-esteem. Everyone’s self-esteem dips in the later years of school. After that, blacks narrowly but consistently surpass whites, up to the age of 21, the upper limit of the study.

The self-esteem gap seems to depend on wealth. Low-income blacks show higher self-esteem than low-income whites. But the gap disap pears at higher income levels. The study also shows that black self-esteem has not risen over time. The theory of many psychologists was that as blacks gained in civil liberties, their self-esteem would rise. But the study shows it has never been low.

The report will confound black activists who have seen raising black self-esteem as the key to overcoming social disadvantage.

So blacks typically have higher self-esteem than their white counterparts. However - in typical fashion - the results of the study have been interpreted through the lens of egalitarianism which, like its optical counterpart, reverses reality:-

But Chris Myant of the Commission for Racial Equality welcomes the study: ‘These results are very interesting. They suggest the level of discrimination is far higher than thought because here is a group with high self-esteem who are underachieving, and so must be having higher obstacles put in their way. It suggests that what is holding black people back is not their own attitudes, but those of society as a whole.

Or perhaps they are perfectly comfortable with their level of achievement and view things like “grades” and “standards” of success simply as white incursions.

However, I believe the award of most inane comment goes to a Ekow Eshun former editor of Arena magazine:-

Black kids do not have low self-esteem,’ he said. ‘They are actually forced to think very hard about who they are and to find ways of being themselves by social attitudes. They do not feel like sportsmen or pop stars or thieves or any of the other stereotypes. They feel like real people. It is not surprising that the kids from wealthier backgrounds have lower self-confidence, though. It isn’t that they feel bad about being black, but they are more likely to live in an environment where there are more people to treat them worse. Think of a young, black kid at an English public school and you’ll know what I mean.’

Apparently, the more successful Black people are, the more obstacles they have to overcome. They simply graduate to more antagonistic and harsher milieus with every increase in personal status.

Wow! Condoleeza should be proud; she must have navigated a veritable army of Klansmen to obtain seating in the halls of power! (In addition to having had an oil tanker named after her – although conveniently renamed to avoid embarrassment for Operation Iraqi Liberation)

So to summarize:-

1) Black failings are the fault of a systemically, racist public either consciously or unconsciously hell-bent on throwing down roadblocks to negro achievement.

2) High self-estimation of Blacks is evidence of a systemically racist public.

3) Less-than-high self-estimation of successful Blacks is evidence of a systemically racist public.

According to Trevor Phillips, Greater London Authority Chairman, we must ask ourselves: “You have to ask what these schools are doing to make these children underachieve.”

The only acceptable answer is for white Britons to get out of the way of that ol’ freight train of proud black achievement. Let them follow the high moral example of their always self-sacrificing and by no means grabbing or monopolistic elder brothers in egalitarianism. For example, on the other side of the pond the Jewish Daily Forward carries the headline, “Billionaire Boychiks Battle for Media Empire.”

When Sam Zell, a Chicago real estate mogul and soon-to-be media magnate, was a junior counselor at a Jewish summer camp, he regularly transfixed his campers with tales of his family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Poland.

The Zell family traveled through Russia and Japan, pretending to be tourists at the Bolshoi Ballet so as not to stand out. Fred Margulies, a camper in Zell’s bunk, said that the tale — told after lights out — was the most memorable part of the summer, and a prototypical display of Zell’s preternaturally magnetic personality.

“He was a great storyteller, and he captivated us,” said Margulies, today a rabbi and businessman in Chicago.

Zell’s storytelling skills may be put to a new use when he becomes the owner and CEO of one of America’s most powerful media companies, Tribune Company, which owns 23 televisions stations, a baseball team and many major newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

... In an interview with the Tribune last week, Zell suggested that he would not be involved editorially. “Do I look naive enough to think I have any influence about what people write?” Zell asked in his blunt fashion.

Still, Zell has made it clear that he does have an interest in the things his new media properties cover. In the interview last week, he said that his favorite newspaper columnists are Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Friedman and David Brooks, all of whom are Jewish and two of whom write frequently and sympathetically about Israel.

Zell himself is a major donor to causes in the Middle East. His donations include a $3.1 million donation to the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center in Israel and separate donations to the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress, a right-wing Israeli think tank. In the United States, he has given major gifts to such Jewish causes as the American Jewish Committee and a Chicago Jewish day school named after his father. All this is on top of his political donations, which have gone mostly to Republican candidates.

OK, Zell is not black exactly. But he could be prideful and self-inflated. Thank goodness there is no opportunity for whites to cynically infer that any “knowledge gained through experience” applies in this case. The SEC is ensuring strict fairness in the bidding process by allowing media mogul David Geffen (CA) and Eli Broad (CA) in on the action. Have no fear of all those stars of David. We are assured by the Forward that:-

Despite being co-religionists, the bidders for the Tribune properties represent a wide spectrum of American Jewish experiences, and their ownership would mean very different things for the papers.

So, we can expect a wide variety of Semitic thought. Maybe someone will answer that age-old question of whether or not a Swiss cheese and chicken sandwich is Kosher.

Daniel J

Tags: Oh Tempora, Oh Mores

Comments:

Posted by Bo Sears on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 03:58 | #

ABOUT THE SELF-ESTEEM GAP

One of the things that is problematical about the term “self-esteem” is that it has been made to stand for so many things that it almost stands for nothing. Resisting Defamation has been using another phrase for over a decade which avoids unearned pride & irrational self-assessments, and pinpoints what Europeans and European Diasporans might find a reasonable definition, namely, that each child has “the right to a decent sense of self-respect.”

Okay, that’s longer than “self-esteem,” but it includes a better way to talk about an important quality we want our children and grandchildren to have. That others may have a wildly misplaced “self-esteem” is not our problem.

1990 AAUW STUDY

In early 1990, the American Association of Uiversity Women carried out a study about this phenomenon and found that young European American girls were a full 30 points below their African American and Latina counterparts on a 100 point scale.

Young European American boys were similarly lower in this quality than their non-European American counterparts, but not as low as European American girls.

NEW YORK TIMES

The New York Times (January 9, 1991) in discussing the AAUW study, pointed out that, “Among girls, race is apparently a factor in the retention of self-esteem, the survey found. Far more black girls surveyed were still self-confident in high school compared to white and Hispanic girls, and white girls lost their self-assurance earlier than Hispanic girls.”

1978 SSSP STUDY

The October 1978 Journal of the Society for the Study of Social Problems discussed this racially-based differential and pointed out that African Americans were “significantly more likely to have high self-esteem” than European Americans, and that European American girls and women “have significantly lower self-esteem than any of the other groups.”

Posted by Desmond Jones on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 05:13 | #

happiness differences between whites and blacks are rooted in genes, not environment.

Anthony Blair says not.

Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture.

Giving the Callaghan lecture in Cardiff, the prime minister admitted he had been “lurching into total frankness” in the final weeks of his premiership. He called on black people to lead the fight against knife crime. He said that “the black community - the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law abiding people horrified at what is happening - need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids”.

Mr Blair said he had been moved to make his controversial remarks after speaking to a black pastor of a London church at a Downing Street knife crime summit, who said: “When are we going to start saying this is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend that this is nothing to do with it?” Mr Blair said there needed to be an “intense police focus” on the minority of young black Britons behind the gun and knife attacks. The laws on knife and gun gangs needed to be toughened and the ringleaders “taken out of circulation”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2055148,00.html

Decima Francis, re-interprets Powell and pronounces that the disproportionate levels of black crime in ol’ London town are definitely not down to genetics or culture.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/6342829.stm

Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:00 | #

Maybe wealth is less of the determinant here than a combination of testosterone and intelligence. As regards the latter, an unexamined life might not, as someone once said, be worth living. But to the liver of that life it might be just fine and dandy.

Posted by jlh on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:09 | #

Self-esteem is largely a function of serum androgens. I assume most here are familiar with Rushton’s continuum: blacks highest, asians lowest, whites in the middle. As for the self-esteem of the higher-achieving blacks being lower than what you’d expect, I’d say that they would represent the higher IQ/lower androgen end of the population, and that in addition to hormonal and cognitive causes, they reason that their success depends on affirmative action and feel insecure about it.

Posted by ben tillman on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:53 | #

Apparently as blacks climb the social ladder their self-esteem lowers….

No, no, no.

It stays the same or increases.

The self-esteem gap seems to depend on wealth. Low-income blacks show higher self-esteem than low-income whites. But the gap disappears at higher income levels….

The gap disappears because white self-esteem goes up with income more than black self-esteem does.

Posted by ben tillman on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:02 | #

I thought black self-esteem was lowering and white self-esteem was staying the same.

That seems to be what the more “scientific” statement of jlh is saying as well….

JLH was trying to rationalize your statement. The article’s characterization of the study contains nothing to suggest that black self-esteem decreases as income increases.

It’s possible, but the article doesn’t suggest it.

Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:04 | #

ben,

If high self-opinion is a function of negro-levels of serum testosterone production, then it may be that a decline in self-confidence attends ageing. I believe Rushton’s model showed that black/white ST levels were on a par in later life, which is when earnings would normally be at their highest for successful men.

Posted by Amalek on Sat, 14 Apr 2007 00:03 | #

This is not new. Michael Levin mentioned black adults’ higher self-esteem in “Why Race Matters” ten years ago, suggesting that the so-called legacy of slavery (from which they were freed in the USA largely absent their own efforts, as a byproduct of economic warfare between white blocs) did not seem to have lowered the negroes’ spirits all that badly.

High self-esteem is a function of the black man’s evolved deficiency of foresight and empathy. As Levin wrote, the interior life of the average negro male is characterised by ‘impulse-ridden fantasies’. We observe a pervasive childishness, a continual surrender to the spurious glamour of celebrity. Black kids all think they’ll grow up to be rappers, sports stars, DJs and suchlike. Their clothes, their ‘bling’, their body language and cursing all testify to their ineradicable childishness: what Darwin identified 150 years ago as the African’s ‘happy go lucky’, eternal-adolescent quality. Their mores and appearance exhibit a dread of maturity as white bourgeois people understand it.

Here is an amusing practical example of how blacks habitually show off, to their own cost—when buying cars:

http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/12/the_lunatic_fri.html

Even those few blacks and half-castes who graduate into big boys’ games spend their lives flogging their pseudo-expertise as ‘persons of color’, wallowing in the self-satisfaction of a parasitic, self-indulgent culture. Where are the negro professors of classics or nuclear physics, as opposed to Black Studies? How many negro politicians rise above clamouring for welfare and moral get-out-of-jail-free cards for their own miscreants?

David Hume’s verdict 250 years ago has acquired more force from the experience of emancipation, and the endowment of these beings with ‘civil rights’:

There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient GERMANS, the present TARTARS, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe slaves dispersed all over EUROPE, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho’ low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In JAMAICA indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.

Posted by JB on Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:03 | #

Solving The African IQ Conundrum : “Winning Personality” Masks Low Scores
JPRushton
http://www.vdare.com/misc/rushton_iq_conundrum.htm

It may be surprising to learn that Blacks also have higher self-esteem than Whites and East Asians. This is true even when Blacks are poorer and less educated. In one large study of 11- to 16-year-olds, Blacks rated themselves as more attractive than did Whites. Blacks also rated themselves higher in reading, science and social studies (but not in mathematics).

The Blacks said this even though they knew they had lower actual academic achievement scores than White children.

In contrast, East Asian students, even though they score higher in academic achievement than Whites, often score lower in self-esteem.

Posted by JB on Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:10 | #

Despite being co-religionists… (Forward article)

religion my @ss. Does the overtly homo liberal David Geffen regularly goes to the synagogue or asks his boy prostitutes to read him passages of the Torah ? do jews really believe their own bs ?

Posted by MensaRefugee on Thu, 26 Apr 2007 23:13 | #

Its obvious. In a black’s mind everything they see around them is potentially what they created or can create.

They dont have the general intellectual capacity to ponder the existential questions like “Am I just a moocher or potential creator of the world I see around me?”

For Whites and E.Asians it is painfully obvious that to maintain society they need to understand it and perpetuate it - it is not a ‘given’ and the question of whether they measure up is salient.

Superimpose on that genetic differences in personality and the picture is complete.